The Reading Series: Mel Nichols On Googling Herself

Thank you, Mel Nichols, for providing us with two videos and for using a ukulele in one of them. While listening to these poems ("I Google Myself" and "Bicycle Day"), I kept thinking about the necessity to borrow and to cut and paste from different parts of the world: any fragment you'd find on a sidewalk, anything taken out of context, words or strings of words that rhyme. I couldn't help but Google you once or twice, adding quotation marks around your name for isolation. I even image-searched you, which was confusing. While Googling you, this line appeared: "to see more of Mel Nichols's poetry go to THIS LINK." That line, after being copy/pasted, no longer includes a hyperlink to your poems. But because of the ubiquitousness of the internet, and the way poetry exists online even when it doesn't, it shouldn't be hard to find your poems somewhere behind this page.

"I Google Myself"

"Bicycle Day"

MEL NICHOLS is the author of four collections of poetry, including Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon (National Poetry Series finalist, Edge 2009) and Bicycle Day (Slack Buddha 2008). She curates Ruthless Grip Poetry, teaches at George Mason University, and is a visiting writer at Corcoran College of Art & Design. New books are forthcoming from Edge Books and Flowers & Cream Press.